Alarm sounded over black tar heroin use Cartels find market among young and rich

17:27 Alarm sounded over black tar heroin use Cartels find market among young and rich 0 Comments

The escalation of black tar heroin in Charlotte has police worried about growing addiction and dangers for young people.

"It's as serious as the beginning of the crack cocaine epidemic," said UNC Charlotte criminal justice professor Paul Friday. "And the reason it is serious is because it can expand so quickly."

Friday spoke to the Charlotte City Council on Monday, warning about increasing use of the highly addictive drug that seems particularly prevalent in affluent areas and among young people. He was joined by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, who told council members that suppliers are Mexican-based cartels that operate as efficiently as a business.

"We take a cell off the street and oftentimes, they'll make another cell in the next five days because they're at the bottoms of the distribution chain," Maj. Glen Neimeyer said at a Tuesday press conference.

Neimeyer said users are typically educated, mostly white and from areas of Charlotte where crime is not prevalent.

Black-tar heroin, made from poppies primarily grown in western Mexico, gets its name from its color and texture. Police provided no statistics this week, but attribute the drug's rise to its relatively cheap price and the well-run supply networks.

Ten years ago, doctors at CMC-Mercy rarely saw a patient addicted to black tar heroin in its detoxification program. Now 40 percent of their patients are being treated for abuse of black tar heroin and related prescription drug abuse, said Robert Martin, the hospital's director of the substance abuse services.

The hospital compiled a breakdown by zip code of where 128 black tar patients lived.

"Do you know zip code 28105?" Martin said. "That's like a really nice area of Matthews and it has 19 of the 128."

The second-highest number of patients came from Mint Hill.

It's common for patients to take between three and nine doses a day, Martin said.

At $9 a dose, usually delivered in small balloons, it would cost an addict $16,400 a year if he or she purchased five balloons a day.

"The kids that we're seeing have disposable incomes," he said. "You have to have money to have opiate dependency because if you don't use, you're going to go into withdrawal."

Police say the Mexican drug organizations are sophisticated operations with managers and distribution supervisors. They have strict rules and keep detailed budgets, including planning for annual losses.

In February, Candelario Gonzalez Rivera was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a major black tar heroin operation in Charlotte.

Federal officials say Gonzalez, known as "Juancho," was a leader of a Mexican-based drug trafficking group that distributed thousands of doses of black tar heroin throughout the region.

According to the U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, Gonzalez was arrested in possession of more than $50,000 in cash, hundreds of balloons used to package heroin, and two firearms.

Friday is working to help study the problem with the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program in North Carolina.

He says traffickers like Gonzalez are targeting young people from private schools.

One tactic is to sell them marijuana laced with heroin. The hope is that the student will become addicted.

"Then," Friday said, "they'll come back and get the real thing."

Friday said users often become addicted after abusing prescription painkillers like OxyContin and hydrocodone.

"Kids with scholarships to college, who are from good families, these are the kids who have been targeted. The parents of those kids need to wake up."